Iran Media Uses Erroneous But Widely Circulated Holocaust Myth To Deny Authenticity Of The Holocaust

A Iranian news website sympathetic to the regime in Tehran published an article denying the Holocaust by pointing to an erroneous Holocaust story that claims the Nazis manufactured soap from their Jewish victims. For this website, Mashregh News, this dubious story was all the evidence needed to prove that the Holocaust is a myth and that it must be exposed as a historical falsity.

The article is an example of an often-used tactic by neo-Nazi groups and prominent Holocaust deniers. By their logic, if the soap story is a fabrication, consequently all historical facts concerning the authenticity of the Holocaust are nothing more than “Jewish myths” promoted by an “international Jewish organization.”

The current Iranian regime is no stranger to Holocaust denial. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for “experts” to investigate the veracity of the Holocaust. In December 2006, Iran played host to a Holocaust denial conference, “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,” which was attended by a diverse group of anti-Semites, including neo-Nazi, radical anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists, and Islamic fundamentalists.

One month prior, Iran’s Culture Ministry hosted a cartoon contest that sought entries deriding Jews and mocking the Holocaust. The winning cartoon was submitted by a Moroccan artist who depicted Israelis constructing a wall around the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, with the panels of the wall reflecting an image of the infamous railway leading to the gates of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Although Mashregh News is not directly affiliated with or run by the Iranian government, it nonetheless staunchly promotes the government’s ideology and features articles and interviews with top officials from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Anti-Semite Dieudonne In the News in France

Update: Dieudonne ran unsuccessfully for French Parliament as the Anti-Zionist Party candidate from Dreux. He was eliminated in the second round of the election, receiving just 1.14% of votes cast. His film, L’Antisémite, has been banned from the Cannes film festival for violating the festival’s policy of not “threatening public order or insulting religious beliefs.”

Anti-Semitic performer Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala has garnered some media attention in France since he announced on May 18 that he will be running for Parliament as a member of the Anti-Zionist Party (Parti Anti-Sioniste or PAS) in upcoming elections. Dieudonne is known for his performances which routinely include Holocaust denial, praise for Adolf Hitler, Nazi salutes, slurs against the Talmud and other anti-Semitic language.

This is not Dieudonne’s first time running for political office. Most recently, he stood as a candidate for the European Parliament in 2009 with the Anti-Zionist Party, receiving 1.3% of the vote. According to its website, the Anti-Zionist Party’s primary goal is to remove the “Zionist intervention” from the public affairs of France.

Dieudonne, one of four PAS members running for Parliament, hopes to represent the city of Dreux, 50 miles west of Paris. The other PAS candidates are running in the 8th and 13th districts in the North as well as the 14th district in the Rhone region.

While Dieudonne has repeatedly been prosecuted for his racist and anti-Semitic performances and comments, none of his criminal convictions render his candidacy illegal. According to an article in the French edition of The Huffington Post, even if his campaign materials incite hatred or racial violence, the penalties would be significant (€45,000 fine and five years in prison) but would not make him ineligible for Parliament.

As a 501(c)(3) organization, ADL does not endorse or oppose candidates for office in the United States or abroad.

Anti-Semite Dieudonne’s Tour Cancelled in Montreal

Update: Dieudonne’s film, L’Antisémite, has been banned from the Cannes film festival for violating the festival’s policy of not “threatening public order or insulting religious beliefs.”

Four scheduled shows in Montreal by French comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, whose act routinely includes Holocaust denial, praise for Adolf Hitler, Nazi salutes, slurs against the Talmud and other anti-Semitic language, were cancelled last week by Quebec’s largest concert promoter.

The cancelled shows were part of Dieudonne’s first attempt to seriously promote his first feature film L’Antisémite, released earlier this year, in North America. The film, reportedly funded in part by the Iranian government, makes no attempt to conceal its message. The film’s trailer shows Dieudonne declaring, “It’s clear the Jews control everything — media, finance, politics. We no longer have a choice,” before arriving to the apparent punch line, “we must exterminate them.” Another short clip from the film mocks the discovery of the gas chambers at Auschwitz, suggesting that they were a fabrication.



Dieudonne has been the subject of much controversy in Europe where he has been convicted of inciting hatred in France and is under investigation in Belgium for “inciting racial hatred and xenophobia” during a performance earlier this year. Additionally, Belgian authorities recently forced Dieudonne to cancel two shows in Brussels, and French police stopped Dieudonne mid-performance on May 9 for breaking local defamation laws.

In addition to his performances, Dieudonne makes his views known outside the context of his supposed comedy, including running for the European Parliament in 2009 with the Parti Anti Sioniste (the Anti-Zionist Party), which received 1.3% of the vote. According to the party’s website, its primary goals are to remove the “Zionist intervention” from the public affairs of France, denounce all politicians who advocate for Zionism, and to eradicate all forms of Zionism from France.

In April 2010, Dieudonne was interviewed on Iran’s English-language propaganda television station Press TV, where he claimed that Zionism has organized “all the wars and disorders on the planet.” He also argued that the stock market and the unemployment that resulted from its crash are part of the “Zionist project” and that Zionists manipulate the film industry using movies as Jewish propaganda.

Dieudonne, the son of a French mother and a Cameroonian father, is also notorious for a grotesque provocation in 2008 in which he had his assistant, dressed as a Jew in a concentration camp, present an award to Robert Faurisson, a serially convicted Holocaust denier, at a show at the Zenith Theater in Paris. Dieudonne was fined €10,000 for the incident, which was considered a “public insult of people of Jewish faith or origin.”

Ahmadinejad Marks Anniversary of Revolution with Holocaust Denial

In front of a crowd of thousands gathered in Azadi Square in Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again launched a tirade against Israel and engaged in Holocaust denial and mockery.

It was during his customary speech on February 11 marking the start of a week of celebration in the Islamic Republic of Iran of the 33^rd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution when Ahmadinejad said, “We destroyed the holiness of the Holocaust, which was invented by the West and the colonialists.”

In December 11-12, 2006, Iran hosted a Holocaust denial conference, “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,” in Tehran, which brought together a diverse group of anti-Semites, including white supremacists and neo-Nazis, radical anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists and Islamic extremists.

At Saturday’s event, Ahmadinejad also added that the West and imperialist power are responsible for the creation of the “Zionist entity,” an entity he claims that uses the Holocaust as an act of idol worship, invoking the Biblical story of the golden calf at Mount Sinai.

Furthermore, Ahmadinejad promised the crowds that the government would announce major advancements in Iran’s nuclear program in honor of the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. On Wednesday, the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, Iran’s central propaganda outlet, announced that Ahmadinejad oversaw the placement of 20% enriched nuclear fuel rods “into the heart of the reactor in Tehran.”